SOFIA: Ilian Metev’s debut feature 3/4 won the Grand Prix in the international competition of the 22nd Sofia International Film Festival held from 7 to18 March 2018.This Bulgarian/German coproduction also won the Best Bulgarian Film Award.

SOFIA: Bulgaria’s Parliament adopted the amended Film Industry Act, proposed by the Council of Ministers in November 2017. The changes meet the country’s commitments to bring the existing film state aid schemes in line with the European Commission's Communication on State Aid for Films and Other Audiovisual Works (2013/C 332/01).

SOFIA: Twelve debut and sophomore films were selected for the international competition of the 22nd Sofia International Film Fest. The festival will run in Sofia from 7 to 18 March 2018 and additionally in some of the biggest Bulgarian cities from 19 to 29 March 2018.

SOFIA: The year 2017 started with the appointment of a caretaker government by the Bulgarian president, General Rumen Radev, designated to act in a limited time. Centre-right GERB party won the parliamentary elections and in May 2017 Boyko Borisov became Prime Minister for the third time since 2009.

SOFIA: Admissions to domestic films almost tripled in Bulgaria from 176,395 in 2016 to 512,521 in 2017, while the domestic films cashed in over 2 m EUR in 2017 compared to 612,000 EUR in 2016. This is due mostly to the success of Victor Bojinov’s Heights.

SOFIA: The Bulgarian National Film Center allotted 1,856,000 EUR / 3,630,000 BGN in its second session at the end of November 2017. Nine projects, including three feature films with higher budgets, one feature film with a lower budget, one debut feature and three short films, received production funding. The development of four feature films was also supported.

SOFIA: Victor Bojinov’s debut feature, the historical drama Heights, based on Milen Ruskov’s eponymous epic bestseller, opened in first place at the domestic box office with nearly 30,000 admissions on 65 screens.

SOFIA: Actress/producer Jana Karaivanova has been appointed as executive director of the Bulgarian National Film Centre on 27 October 2017. She took the post after an election call including three other candidates.

The Film New Europe (FNE) Association is the networking platform for film professionals in the CEE/SEE/Baltics region. The webportal and FNE newswire was chosen as the MAIN TOOL to achieve the network’s objectives of the sharing of know how, visibility of regional cultural diversity and finally the VOICE of the region.

FNE’s objectives include VISIBILITY for the region and AUDIENCES for films by providing a special focus on the region.